The throughput of communications between computing devices continues to increase as modern networking hardware enables physically separate computing devices to communicate with one another orders of magnitude faster than was previously possible. Furthermore, high-speed network communication capabilities are being made available to a greater number of people, both in the locations where people work, and in their homes. As a result, an increasing amount of data and services can be meaningfully provided to an increasing audience via such network communications. In particular, it has become more practical to perform digital data processing at a location remote from the location where such data is initially generated, and where the processed data will be consumed. For example, a user can upload a digital photograph to a server and then cause the server to process the digital photograph, changing its colors and applying other visual edits to it. In such an example, the digital processing, such as of the photograph, is being performed by a device that is remote from the user. In another, more common, example, users utilize services and functionality that are conceptually simple, such as search services, but which, in fact, require vast amounts of processing capability.
To provide such data and processing capabilities, via network communications, from a centralized location, the centralized location typically comprises hundreds or thousands of computing devices, typically mounted in vertically oriented racks. Such a collection of computing devices, as well as the associated hardware necessary to support such computing devices, and the physical structure that houses the computing devices and associated hardware, is traditionally referred to as a “data center”. With the increasing availability of high-speed network communication capabilities, and thus the increasing provision of data and services from centralized locations, as well as the traditional utilization of data centers, such as the provision of advanced computing services and massive amounts of computing processing capability, the size and quantity of data centers continues to increase.
However, by centralizing data storage and processing in a data center, the need to protect such data, and the associated computing devices and other hardware, increases. For example, even a simple, honest mistake, such as a technician replacing one wrong hard drive, can result in a loss of data, or, at least, a loss of data availability, for thousands of customers of the data center. A malicious action, such as, for example, the removal and destruction of multiple server blades, storage devices, and the like, can cause even more hardship for an even greater number of customers. Furthermore, in many instances, the data processing performed at the data center can carry with it minimum security requirements such as, for example, the need to have a video surveillance surrounding the computing equipment performing such processing. Such security requirements can limit the ability of data centers to shift processing between multiple computing devices and groups of computing devices to provide reliability and uptime. More specifically, processing having associated with it minimum security requirements can only be shifted among computing devices supporting those security requirements.
Existing mechanisms, directed to providing physical security of computing devices and associated components in a data center, are cumbersome. Such mechanisms are implemented at too coarse a level and, as such, introduce inefficiencies into the operation of a data center. For example, physical locks are typically implemented on doors allowing access to the data center or specific portions of the data center. However, once someone has gained access, they have an equal amount of access to every computing device and component within the data center, or within a particular room of the data center. Consequently, a technician who is only supposed to replace a single component, has access to every component and, thus, the potential for error is introduced. Similarly, if the data center is to offer the ability, to its customers, to perform processing associated with certain minimum security requirements, such as the need for video surveillance, then the data center must implement such security requirements across all of the components of the data center, or risk losing the ability to transfer processing from one set of components to another, which can be a significant ability, as processing is often transferred among computing devices in a data center, including due to computing device maintenance, refresh and failure.